Blood of the Wolf

“Lucan…”

Lucan looked up to see his brother, Janos, approaching him. He closed his eyes and bit back a groan at what he knew was about to happen. The discussion. Lucan had been avoiding it for weeks, dodging his brother, who also happened to be the leader of the Cruentus Clan.

Janos had an agenda, and Lucan wanted no part of it.

“No,” he said, glaring at his sibling. Though he’d lived here for only four years, since Janos and their brother, Niko, had rescued him from the fiery accident that had ended his old life, he felt a familial closeness that allowed him to stand up to the clan leader when few others would.

“You can’t avoid this,” Janos said, pulling a wrinkled piece of parchment from his pants pocket and sitting in the chair opposite Lucan in the great hall of the Cruentus compound. Four levels of balconies circled the cavernous space, and though Lucan was alone with his brother, he felt the curious stares of the other Dragons who lived in this community.

Lucan cringed. The dreaded paper. He knew exactly what it was. He’d seen Janos bandying it about, and Lucan had been having vague dreams about it for over a week. It was the list of Cruentus Dragons and the mates that had been detected for them by the Dragon council. Janos had been systematically going through the scanty offering, that in no way came close to covering all the clan’s members, and connecting his people to their matches.

“Stop right now,” Lucan told him. “I don’t want to know who’s on your list—”

“She’s your mate, Lucan.”

“I have a mate. I don’t need another one.” Meda would always be the woman for him. It didn’t matter what some magical scrying said. It didn’t matter that she thought him dead or that they could never be together. She was his one true mate, and the rest didn’t matter.

Janos tipped his head in acknowledgement. “I understand how you feel. I know how I’d feel if I was separated from Scarlett.” Scarlett was his woman, to whom he’d been joined a little over a year ago. “But you’ll feel differently about being alone in a hundred years or so. You’ll get…lonely. Trust me. I know. I’m far older than you.”

Older was an understatement. Janos was the spawn of their father’s first mating, nearly a thousand years before Lucan’s birth, but in Lucan’s opinion, that didn’t make his brother any smarter about what was going on in Lucan’s heart.

“I choose not to mate,” he said firmly. “If in a hundred years or so, I feel like I want to fuck someone, I’ll find someone to screw.” He stood and stared down at the raven hair so like his own. “But as far as lonely goes, I don’t think I can get any worse off. Another woman won’t make it better. That might make me a lovesick fool in your eyes, but the fact of the matter is, I committed to her and even though I’m dead to her, even though we can’t be together because of this stupid curse on me, I belong to her. Period.”

Turning on his heel, he marched off, heading toward his personal quarters—unfortunately a few doors away from his illustrious leader’s. Janos fell in step with him, and Lucan didn’t bother to suppress the growl that rumbled in his throat. At this rate, his scales would be sliding into place, and he’d be spouting fire at Janos. The Dragon inside him was just as agitated as the man who shook with the irritation of being told he had to take a woman he hadn’t chosen.

“It’s not a curse,” Janos said quietly. “It’s your species. Dragon shape-shifter. A gift.”

Lucan let out a burst of derisive laughter. “Gift? Are you for real? We have people trying to kill us—just because we exist and they don’t like it. Talk about xenophobia. Being able to become a Dragon isn’t all that great. In case you’ve forgotten, it hurts. Being engulfed in a ball of flame—involuntarily—the first few times, that was a bitch, too.”

“I know the molting is uncomfortable.”

“Uncomfortable?” Lucan muttered under his breath. Maybe if he kept walking, his “big brother” would leave him alone.

“And the shift gets easier the more you do it. You need to stop fighting it. That’s why it hurts.”

“I fight it because I don’t want it. You know what I want? I want to be normal. I don’t want to live for thousands of years. I don’t want to have scales and fly. I had a great life. That’s what I want.”

“Geez, Lucan, put on your big girl panties and deal,” a new voice enjoined.

Lucan glared at Janos’ twin, Niko—the brother who pissed him off more often than not. “Fuck off, Nicky.”

Niko growled. He hated the nickname, and Lucan knew it. “Perhaps the one who needs fucking is you, Wolf. Just take the damn name from Janos, go get your woman—poor thing—and get on with life. We’re all about done with the whining.”

“I don’t whine,” Lucan grated. “I just want to be left alone!” He pointed at Niko. “And don’t even start in on me about sulking. I do what I have to around here and keep to myself. There’s nothing wrong with that.” And that was how he’d gotten the nickname, Wolf. A year after he’d come here, people had taken to calling him the lone wolf since he spent most of his time away from everyone.

Janos gave Niko a pointed look. “Go away. I can handle this.”

“It’s always the same,” Niko complained. “’Shut up, Niko. Go away, Niko. Blah, blah, blah.’ You guys need to lighten up.”

Lucan kept walking, ignoring both his brothers. His suite of rooms was on the top floor of the compound, and since he refused to shift and fly, he had a climb ahead of him. His leader continued on at his side while his other sibling shifted and flew off with a few muttered words of reproach. Though Lucan happened to like Niko a lot, today, he was glad to see him go, especially after his unfair words.

Yeah, Lucan wasn’t thrilled by the turn his life had taken, but he wasn’t sitting in a corner mourning his losses. He wasn’t listening to depressing, emo music and writing bad poetry. He was getting on with his life, doing his job in the Dragon’s community and trying to forget his old life. He even managed to keep the memories at bay for hours at a time now, something he’d once been pretty sure wouldn’t ever happen.

He and Janos continued on in silence for a few minutes.

“Lucan,” Janos finally said. “I fear I’ve left you alone too much.”

“I’m fine.” Lucan’s gaze shifted away from his brother even as he kept his face forward. “I’ve been busy.”

“I assigned you a weighty task.”

“There’s no one better to do it,” Lucan replied. “I’m the best web designer and information systems tech in our community. It’s taking time to build the network is all. It’s good ‘wolf’ work for me,” he chuckled.

“A Dragon called Wolf,” Janos laughed. “Who would have thought?”

“Around here, stranger things have definitely happened. I might be the most normal man in this place.”

“Perhaps. So…things are going well and you’ll be able to free up time soon? Maybe start working normal hours…”

Lucan’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “There’s a lot of work to be done,” he replied slowly. “Why are you asking?”

Janos shrugged, one side of his mouth turned up in a slight smile. “Meda might want more of your time than you’ve made available lately. Correct me if I’m wrong, but you’ve been working from the time you roll out of bed until you crawl back into it—showering optional. For the record, you’re giving IT guys a bad name.”

“It’s not that bad and you know—” Lucan stopped and blinked. “Did you say Meda?”

His brother pulled out the parchment he must have jammed back in his pocket when they’d left the lower level. He glanced at it. “Andromeda Hutchens. That’s your Meda, right? I didn’t realize at first—not until Scarlett mentioned the name similarity and I did research. She’s always been Meda Cooper to me because that was your last name and you’ve never called her Andromeda.”

“She hates it,” Lucan murmured, pulling the paper from Janos’ hand. Dread and hope warred in his middle. Though his dreams, which he’d discovered were his gift, had gotten stronger since his change, he hadn’t seen this coming.

Was Meda really his intended mate? Could she ever forgive him for not returning to her once he’d recovered from his first molt? Worse, could she accept what he was now? He could barely accept it. How would she? He wasn’t the man she’d known, Lucan Cooper. He was Lucan Aventech, Dragon shifter, loner and stranger.

His finger traced her name. “She’s really my Dragon mate…” he murmured. His brow furrowed, and he looked at Janos’ arm and the sepia mating mark that covered his skin like a filigreed tattoo. “Then why don’t I have the mark? I thought it appeared after intimate exposure to one’s mate—or when a Dragon shifts in his mate’s presence.”

“You hadn’t come into your nature.”

“Right,” Lucan replied darkly. Come into his nature. D-day. Age twenty-five and three months. The day all Dragon’s molted for the first time. Janos and Niko had been watching for him to change.

Lucan had been lost as a baby, separated from Alexi, his own twin brother, his parents and his older brothers who were also twins. “Lost” he’d since discovered, was a euphemism for kidnapped. By the time, he’d been found, the kidnappers had abandoned him, and he’d been shunted from foster home to foster home, until eventually he’d been taken in by the Coopers who’d raised him.

When his true parents had found him, he’d been seven years old and settled in a loving family, adopted in good faith by a couple who couldn’t have their own children. His parents had made the most difficult decision of their long lives. They’d left him with the Coopers, knowing in eighteen years, he’d be brought back into their fold. Though they’d mourned the loss of their child, they’d known the wait was short for a Dragon. A blip in time.

Lucan glanced over at his brother. Janos was over a thousand years old. Eighteen years really was nothing—except Lucan’s parents, his biological parents, hadn’t survived until his molting. Just before his return, they’d taken a trip to the Dragon’s home dimension, had never returned and were feared dead.

And it had become even more important to the Aventechs to reclaim their lost sibling.

He looked at his arm, thinking once more of Meda. “So, now, if I’m near Meda, the mating mark should appear?”

“Unless this information is wrong, but I doubt it. So far, every match has been correct, and not just with our clan. The council leader sent Riven to find her, and he finally has. You should reclaim her as quickly as possible. It’s not safe for the Mates until they’re fully united with their Dragons.”

That was the xenophobia again. The Dragon enemies, the Djinn and Elvish, were bent on wiping out the population of Lucan’s people in any way they could. Since attacks were often ineffectual due to the Dragons’ armor and magic, the Djinn and Elvish went after the Mates who had neither protection until they were joined with their Dragons.

“Where did Riven find her?” Lucan asked then started walking again, the thought of another man near Meda causing his stomach to churn. Riven was an oddity, a half-breed of part Dragon and part Djinn. The Djinn were unaware of his mixed blood and his loyalty to his father’s people. He worked as a spy, procuring information for the Dragons using dark, earth magic he’d learned from his mother.

Lucan trusted him, though several Dragons didn’t.

“In a small town in eastern Wyoming,” Janos answered. “She moved from Colorado after your, um, accident. She’s teaching there.”

“Around kids…”

Janos nodded, getting Lucan’s meaning. Unprotected, Meda was in danger from their enemies, but so were any people around her. Lucan needed to bring her back here before anyone got injured or, worse, killed.

God, she was going to be pissed. And hurt. And pissed. He could take that. He wasn’t afraid of her outrage, and he’d do everything he could to soothe the hurt caused by his supposed death and the fact he hadn’t gone back to her when he could. Guilt had plagued him all this time. It had taken two years to complete the initial molting—uncontrollable bursts of flames that had made him a danger to everyone who didn’t have scales. It had been impossible to go to her. He could have accidentally killed her. Then after…

Too much time had passed. The shame, the guilt and the determination not to disrupt the new life she’d built had worked together to keep him away. She’d hate him for everything she’d been through when she’d thought he’d died.

And then there was the part about being a Dragon. Shifters were things of fantasy, not real life. Meda didn’t believe in what she couldn’t see. She’d think he was lying unless he showed her the truth—then she’d be horrified and disgusted by what he’d become. She’d never want him again. Never.

He shook his head. How could she be his true Mate?

“Are you sure?” he asked. “That she’s the one? She’ll never accept this.” He swiped a hand in front of his body indicating his unseen change.

“Lucan.” Janos stopped him, placed his hands of Lucan’s shoulders and stared into his eyes, his head bent forward slightly with his fervent intent. “She will accept you. You are her mate, and she’ll feel that, just as you’ll feel that. There will be anger, and definitely adjustment, but in the end, you two will be one.”

Lucan nodded. He wasn’t so sure, but for her life and the lives of the innocents around her, he had to try.